Snot a good test

When it comes to a stuffy, runny nose, the old adage is that the color of the mucus tells you whether it’s a bacteria causing the problem: Yellow or green means bacteria, clear means viral or an allergy.

Not so fast say University of Pittsburgh pediatricians. They actually tested that theory, looking for a way to cut back on overuse of antibiotics to treat sinusitis.

“If kids with green or yellow discharge benefitted more from antibiotics than those with clear-colored discharge, we would know that color is relevant for bacterial infection. But we found no difference, which means that color should not be used to guide medical decisions.”

What’s necessary is a bacterial test, but those can take days. The U of P folks hope to develop a rapid antigen test once they find a useful biomarker.

You got your mRNA in my protein

When it comes to Covid-19, protein vaccines are good and mRNA vaccines are even better. But what if you combined them into the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of vaccines?

According to CalTech biomed engineers, the hybrid vaccine they created is the best of both worlds, combining features of mRNA technology (as in Pfizer and Moderna shots) with features of protein nanoparticle-based vaccines (as in the Novavax shot).

The result is a vaccine that elicits both an immediate burst of antibodies as well as a longer-term T cell response.

“Current mRNA vaccines mimic infected cells, while protein nanoparticle-based vaccines mimic free virus particles to stimulate immune responses. Our hybrid technology does both.”

Pfizer now warns of post-tornado shortages

First it looked like that Pfizer plant in Tennessee was erased off the map, and shortages were coming. Then they said, ‘Nope, it was but a scratch — only the warehouse was hit. All is well.’ Now we’ve done a 360 and are back to “Uh-oh.”

The company sent a letter late last week to its hospital customers saying it had identified around 64 different formulations or dosages of those more than 30 drugs produced at the plant that may experience continued or new supply disruptions.

Schoolkids gone wild

The nationwide shortage of Adderall isn’t just affecting college students looking to study late. The students who really need the stuff can’t get it, and teachers are noticing. As one Macon teacher explained, “You can usually tell when they don’t have what they have normally been having […] A day that would normally be very calm in a classroom would be very disrupted.”

How aging works

The chemistry of inflammation?

A hallmark of aging — besides reminiscing about your mother’s boiled meat — is good ol’ inflammation, responsible for just about everything that starts to ail us.

But why must inflammation plague us all? University of Virginia immunologists think they’ve found the answer, which could lead to treatments. It’s all about calcium and how mitochondria^* lose the ability to absorb it.

The researchers believe that increasing calcium uptake by the mitochondrial macrophages could prevent the harmful inflammation and its terrible effects. Because macrophages reside in all organs of our bodies, including the brain, targeting such “tissue-resident macrophages” with appropriate drugs may allow us to slow age-associated neurodegenerative diseases.

Obviously (unless you’re on TikTok) the answer isn’t taking more calcium — it’s the absorption that’s the problem. But now that the UVa researchers know how it works, we’re a big step closer to doing something about it.

^* The powerhouse of the cell

Protein problems and cognitive decline

Even without dementia, aging often brings cognitive decline, leading to people holding up the grocery line while trying to remember how to write a check. You might assume it’s just something that happens, but University of Colorado pharmacologist think they’ve found the mechanism.

That mechanism “involves the mis-regulation of a brain protein known as CaMKII which is crucial for memory and learning.” The article and paper go into the detail of the science, but it’s all about lower levels of nitric oxide eventually leading to the protein not being tweaked properly.

Just as with calcium (above), supplements won’t help; they’ll need to find a way to “normalize the nitrosylation of the protein,” which is obviously something you don’t do at home.

Short Takes

Livers and leprosy

Let’s say you’ve got a patient whose liver has been damaged too much too often to regrow. You might think it’s time for a transplant, but have you considered leprosy?

Apparently armadillos use the the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae to help regrow theirs without creating tumors.

[A]fter years of evolutionary coexistence, “bacteria have figured out how to” induce healthy organ growth in their hosts without damaging them.

“I” for incomplete

A new study out of Yale found that “More than 1 in 6 US children initiated but did not complete all doses in multidose vaccine series.” What that means, they suggest, is not that anti-vaxxers are at work, but more likely “structural barriers to vaccination,” e.g., financial or even transportation difficulties.

Maybe doxy should be OTC

“Hospital visits from tick bites jump 30%” according to the CDC. Lyme disease is the biggest culprit, but let’s not discount its bad-boy cousin, anaplasmosis.